The short version is that three young me broke into a home armed with knives and brass knuckles. Note: Those are deadly weapons. The homeowner's son awoke to the noise of the break in and grabbed what he had on hand. An AR-15 rifle. In that position, any intruder should have fled the house. These three didn't, meaning they were crazy, stupid, determined to hurt the resident or all three. He shot them all dead. Loss of life is always regrettable. I wish criminals would choose some other path that didn't involve harming others and exposing themselves to harm. Nevertheless, if the choice is between a lawful person being harmed or killed and their assailant being harmed and killed, I'd rather see the assailant stopped every time.

Now here's where it gets ridiculous:

Leroy Schumacher, grandfather of Jacob Redfearn, says his grandson made a bad choice but didn’t deserve to die. “What these three boys did was stupid,” said Leroy Schumacher to ABC News. “They knew they could be punished for it but they did not deserve to die.”

Schumacher complains that it wasn’t a fair fight and his grandson didn’t have a chance to defend himself… while breaking into another man’s home and attempting to rob him. “Brass knuckles against an AR-15, come on, who was afraid for their life,” he continued.

Grandpa is addled, but correct. These boys didn't deserve to die for their poor choices, and had they stopped making them, they wouldn't have. They could have never burglarized a home. They could have run (as most burglars do) when they heard someone was home. They could have run when they saw an AR-15. They didn't. They forced the resident to defend himself and as a result of their incredibly poor choices, that resident defended himself with what he had available. They died as a result of their choices--choices that forced the lawful citizen into a horrible, unwanted position. All the resident wanted was a nap, unmolested in his home.

Let's dispense with the idiotic notion of a "fair fight" during the commission of a crime. If a criminal breaks into a home, there is no expectation of a fair fight. The homeowner gets to defend himself or herself however he or she can. There is no obligation to play by any gentlemanly rules of conduct, especially given 3 to 1 disparity of participants and knives and brass knuckles. The criminals came in expecting to be the overwhelming force part of the equation. They wanted an unfair fight. They got one, just not the way they'd planned. However, even if the home had been filled with a platoon of heavily armed marines when the criminals had broken in, those marines as the lawful residents have the absolute right to defend themselves by whatever means they have on hand.

As for "Who was afraid for their life?" let's reiterate. Outnumbered 3 to 1 against armed attackers, the resident was likely afraid even with an AR-15 in hand. They had deadly weapons. It wasn't a kung fu movie where a hero can disarm and disable 3 attackers, it was real life where the good guys sometimes get killed. Fear is the normal condition to being awoken by 3 armed home invaders and defending oneself is an instinctive response. If you doubt it, corner a rat in its nest. See how it behaves.

If this were an isolated incident, it would just be an oddity. It isn't.

An armed elderly man in Dallas shot and killed a suspected burglar after finding him trying to break into his Dallas home this week. However, he was also forced to defend his actions after the would-be robber’s family showed up at his home.

The homeowner, a repeat burglary victim, found 33-year-old Deyfon Pipkins attempting to climb in the house through the window and fired at least one shot at the criminal, hitting his target.

Once police identified the suspect as Pipkins, officers notified his family. Some of those family members showed up at the house and expressed their anger at the homeowner for not issuing a “warning.”

“He could have used a warning,” Lakesha Thompson, Pipkins’ sister-in-law, said. “He could have let him know that he did have a gun on his property and he would use it in self-defense.”

The suspect reportedly had a extensive criminal record and had served time in prison. He was previously convicted of theft, possession of a controlled substance and criminal trespassing.

This is nigh unbelievable. An elderly victim doesn't have any obligation to notify a criminal that he's armed. That might give the criminal time to do something about it. Showing up to protest the actions of a lawful homeowner defending himself should lead to some very satisfying arrests for trespassing.

We have taught people, even criminals, that there is no consequence, nor should there be for wrong choices. We've allowed people to characterize criminals as victims. Neither of these things are true, and should be objected to strenuously by lawful people.

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"Government can not inject a single dollar into the economy that it hasn't first taken out of the economy." -Tom McClintock

The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles. -Jeff Cooper, "The Art of the Rifle"

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.-Alexis de Tocqueville

The Founders based the Constitution not on contemporary political theory of the 1700's, but on the immutable principles of human nature.